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StaphAseptic™ News
Scientists, docs team up to beat staph
April 26, 2010
Omaha World-Herald
By Rick Ruggles
They called penicillin the "magic bullet" in the 1940s for its power to knock out bugs that made people sick. Soon after, bacteria began to adapt and thwart the drug.
And so began a life-and-death, sickness-and-health game of tag: When bacteria adapt, scientists make new medicines to beat them, and then staph bacteria adapt again.
Now the University of Nebraska Medical Center has formed a team of scientists and physicians who will strive to develop new strategies and medicines to battle staph infections, which pose threats not only to hospital patients but increasingly to athletes and children in schools and day care centers.
The Center for Staphylococcal Research plans to capitalize on interaction between scientists who study what makes staph bacteria tick and physicians who treat patients with staph infections.
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Dr. Ken Bayles, the founder of the center, said it's vital that scientists who perform research connect with physicians who treat patients. "I don't go on rounds," said Bayles, who has a doctorate in microbiology. "So it's important that we interact with the docs who are on the front lines."
Staph enters people through cuts, scrapes, intravenous lines, shunts in the brain, material used in knee replacements and many other ways. Many of the worst staph infections are caused by methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. MRSA is bacteria that evade most antibiotics.
Doctors sometimes must surgically dig out the bacteria that can't be touched by antibiotics. An infected artificial hip, for example, might be removed.
Staph can cause pneumonia, septicemia, skin infections such as cellulitis and impetigo, a heart disease called endocarditis, food poisoning and other diseases. A national study attributed close to 100,000 infections to MRSA in 2005 and more than 18,500 deaths.
This is a portion of the original article. To keep reading, visit omaha.com.
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